India

“Investment fund injection into Indian start-ups hit more than $3.5bn (£2.3bn) in the first half of this year. A significant proportion of this money is coming from Venture CapitalFirms outside of India. #FinanceAndBankingForAll

“I do feel a lot of Mentorship needs to be given to start-ups for them to analyse, and put enough thought into, what is the kind of business they want to do, what problem are they really solving, and what value do they bring? In absence of this mentorship, I do see a lot of failures. “

India: US – India Relations

“Every Jan. 26 mark the day in 1950 when India’s constitution came into force.

President Barack Obama will be the first American leader to attend the parade, and his presence on Rajpath alongside the Indian President Pranab Mukherjee — the country’s ceremonial head of state — and Prime Minister Narendra Modi

… the relationship between the two countries “is now accorded a special status that’s a bump up from the past,”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flew to India to attend an economic summit in Gujarat, highlighting four burning issues:

“Sonali Bank revealed that one of its branches in Dhaka had granted a particular firm almost 27 billion taka in loans on false premises. All but 4 billion taka subsequently disappeared without trace.

Poor oversight and imprudent lending, often to well-connected firms or individuals, are a hallmark of state-owned banks everywhere. Bangladesh is no exception.

Bangladesh’s private banks, in turn, have helped boost garment-making, its main industry. Clients are lining up to secure loans for garment factories, power plants and steel mills, among other projects.”]

“I have always thought about Islam as a religion of peace and submission … We need a loud moderate voice to separate the good from the evil.

The fabric of India is woven from many threads — English, Muslim, Hindu and many others. A major concern in today’s India is that we keep deleting our past.We are a blend, this great country of ours. It is our differences that make us who we are. We need to get beyond mere tolerance. We need to accept and respect and love each other.“West Bengal

“More moderniser than market reformer, Narendra Modi relies on his bureaucrats.Mr Modi is a strong-willed moderniser, a man who thinks a capable bureaucracy can fix much of what ails India. he spends a lot of time with civil servants, preferring to meet them instead of ministers. He and they have been looking for fixes, such as shifting the paperwork needed to open a business onto the internet (Ease of doing business), or freeing firms from petty inspections. Meetings are said to have a corporate air, with Mr Modi as chief executive. Dates for specific targets—the “deliverables” of corporate jargon—are set.Mr Modi presses his civil servants to think big. In August he called for 75m more Indian households to have bank accounts by February. The aim is to increase access to banking in a country where two-fifths of households lack it. #FinanceAndBankingForAll

India’s most modernising effort by a mile: Aadhaar, the unique-identity scheme, in which biometric data are to be recorded to create a digital identity for every Indian. This can now be used, say, to open a bank account or get a passport. #FinanceAndBankingForAll

… Each day at the office they log in and out by scanning a fingerprint or iris …technology can do a lot to lessen rampant corruption.

Measurably better performance is what excites Mr Modi. The prime minister wants India to be among the top 50 in the World Bank’s “ease of doing business” index. Currently 134th.

Restructuring the huge and lumbering Indian Railways. Modernise the Food Corporation.

If the bureaucracy works better, implementing market reforms later may prove easier.”

“A WhatsApp helpline where users can post pictures of unclean areas and providing a platform to have regular discussion with residents’ welfare associations are some of the steps announced by the Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday.”